Development Day: Saturday, April 19 from 10:30am to 2pm, at 15A King St. North, Waterloo.

Development Day is when we throw open our doors to everyone and share in the spirit of international development, learning, and making an impact on the world. We provide a light breakfast, a featured presentation, lunch, and then a hands on workshop in the afternoon.

Development Drinks: Thursday, May 15 at 5:30pm at the Huether Hotel.

Development Drinks is a casual event where we invite the local community to develop a discussion about various international development topics in a laid back atmosphere.

After the success of our last DevDrink with the Kumvana leaders, we would like to invite you join us for March’s Development Drinks. In conjunction with the University of Waterloo chapter, who are presenting a film festival on the same day. A discussion of the film will form the centre of the Development Drinks.

About the film Manufactured Landscapes: Follow Edward Burtynsky as he visits what he calls manufactured landscapes: slag heaps, e-waste dumps, huge factories in the Fujian and Zhejiang provinces of China, and a place in Bangladesh where ships are taken apart for recycling. In China, workers gather outside the factory, exhorted by their team leader to produce more and make fewer errors. Burtynsky concludes with a visit to Shanghai, the world’s fastest growing city, where wealth and poverty, high-rises and old neighbourhoods are side by side.

Development Drinks is a casual event where we invite the local community to develop a discussion about various international development topics in a laid back atmosphere. We hope to see you there!

Also, we’re going to have our Development Drinks every second month, so the next one will be on May 15.

2. Water for the World

Enjoy engaging with the movers and shakers of the future? Register today to present at our upcoming Water for the World workshops, or if you have kids, bring them out to participate.

We present Water for the World Workshops in partnership with H2O GO Festival at Guelph City Hall, Guelph Public Library (Main Branch) and Waterloo Public Library (John M. Harper Branch). It’s delivered by EWB volunteers to school students (Grades 5 to 9) during the National Engineering Month in March. This interactive workshop generates discussions on local and global water issues, and what youth can do about these issues.

We will have an informal orientation session on Thursday March 20 @ 7pm – 8:30pm. We will do introductions, some background on Engineers Without Borders, and a mock run though of the presentation. We’ll also make sure each group has all the supplies they need. I’ll make some snacks and people are welcome to stay and mingle. Address: 14 Edwin St, Guelph (use upstairs door around back).

Please let people know about these great events.

3. Professional Fellowship Program

EWB is seeking ambitious and creative leaders to support EWB’s ventures in Africa and EWB’s profesional chapters in Canada through our Professional Fellowship Program. If you are a leader and are based in Ottawa, Montreal, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg or the Waterloo and Guelph area, then you can apply. Applications are due on March 25th, 2014 before 11:59pm PST. Several of our chapter members have participated in the ProFellow program in past years, and it has been a horizon expanding experience for them. More information & how to apply.

Our chapter has been supporting the movement to reduce the trade in conflict minerals such as coltan which is used in manufacturing smartphones. Last year we supported the KW Just Minerals campaign. EWB National office is also a member of the Publish What You Pay coalition, which is pushing mining companies to be transparent about the money they pay to local governments in developing nations. This way, local communities who are supposed to benefit from mining and can find out what deals have been made and ensure they have received their benefits. The PWYP initiative should also take a step towards eliminating conflict minerals.

If you’re interested in this issue, it is the subject of the film “Manufactured Landscapes” and will be discussed more fully at the Development Drinks on Wednesday March 19.